Blackhawks 2, Blue Jackets 0

CHICAGO (AP) _ Eric Daze scored his 200th career goal and the Chicago Blackhawks clinched the fifth seed in the Western Conference by beating the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-0 Sunday.

Jocelyn Thibault stopped 28 shots to get his sixth shutout of the season, and Tony Amonte added a goal in the final period for Chicago, which on Wednesday qualified for its first postseason berth since 1997.

The Blackhawks will face No. 4 seed St. Louis in the opening best-of-7 series with the first two games at the Savvis Center.

By winning just twice in their final seven games, the Blackhawks squandered the chance for home ice advantage in the first round. They were 13-20-8 away from the United Center this season and 28-7-5-1 at home.

Daze took a crossing pass from Michael Nylander and from the right circle partially mis-hit a shot that still beat Marc Denis with 5:39 left in the second. It was Daze's team-leading 38th goal of the season.

From the left side of the net, Amonte took a nifty crossing pass from Alex Zhamnov with 13:28 to play and pushed it past Denis.

Notes:@ Chicago defensemen Boris Mironov (groin) and Alexander Karpovtsev (knee) missed their sixth and seventh straight games respectively. … After a second-period fight, five players from each team were sent off the ice, with 8 of the 10 given 10-minute misconducts. … Thibault is (4-7-2) since the Olympic break. … The Blue Jackets finished with the league's worst road record at (8-29-3-1). … Chicago was 3-1-1 against the Blues this season, but lost 10 days ago in St. Louis, 5-1. … The Blackhawks finished with 96 points, 25 more than last year.